Mindfulness ~ Niguma

Carelessness and impaired mindfulness cause downfalls. Therefore mindfulness is explained first.
To practice mindfulness and awareness of the illusion of inseparable appearance-emptiness of this heartless body as the Victor’s Body is the direct application of mindfulness to the body.
The reference-points of pleasure, pain, equanimity, and the sensations of all designated phenomena understood as mere sensation are the direct application of mindfulness to sensation.
All phenomena are mind,
yet mind will not be found inside or outside.
Mind not existing at all except as illusion
is the application of mindfulness to the mind.
Shrävakas and pretyekabuddhas
label all things as phenomena.
To know them as random labels of mere names
is the application of mindfulness of phenomena.

Niguma

A good season for you ~ Wumen Huikai

In spring, hundreds of flowers;
in autumn, a harvest moon;
in summer, a refreshing breeze;
in winter, snow will accompany you.
If useless things do not hang in your mind,
Any season is a good season for you.

Wumen Huikai

Attitude of a Dharma practitioner ~ Dudjom Rinpoche

To put it simply, from the moment you enter the sacred Dharma and become a Dharma practitioner, your inner attitude and outer conduct should far surpass those of an ordinary mundane person. As the saying goes:
The sign of true learning is a peaceful temperament,
And the sign of having meditated is fewer afflictions.
If, on the contrary, your attitude and conduct are not even slightly better than an average person caught up in worldly affairs, you might consider yourself a scholar simply because you have some intellectual understanding of a few texts. Or you might think you are a perfect monk simply because you maintain celibacy. Or just because you know how to chant a few ritual texts, you might start thinking of yourself as a ngakpa. These are all just instances of blatant arrogance, and only go to show that even with the Dharma one can stumble in the direction of the unwholesome. As the incomparable Dakpo Lharje [Gampopa] said:
When it is not practised properly, even the Dharma can catapult one into the lower realms.

Dudjom Rinpoche

Where is the best place ~ Machig Labdrön

Where is the best place?
Not clinging to a place or location is the best place.

Machig Labdrön

You will have to go ~ Padampa Sangye

Just as worn-out clothes can never again be made as new,
It’s no use seeing a doctor once you’re terminally ill;
You’ll have to go. We humans living on this earth
Are like streams and rivers flowing toward the ocean –
All living beings are heading for that single destination.
Now, like a small bird flying off from a treetop,
I, too, will not be here much longer; soon I must move on.

Padampa Sangye

Letting be ~ Chögyam Trungpa

The method that the Buddha discovered is meditation. He discovered that struggling to find answers did not work. It was only when there were gaps in his struggle that insights came to him. He began to realize that there was a sane, awake quality within him that manifested itself only in the absence of struggle. So the practice of meditation involves “letting be.”

Chögyam Trungpa

In my isolated mountain retreat ~ Sera Khandro

In my isolated mountain retreat of limitless appearances,
remaining in the practice where the world and beyond arise as ornaments,
I sustained the fundamental nature, free from fixating on hope and fear.
Gazing upon my own true face – innate luminosity –
I possess the instructions on self-liberation of appearances.
In my isolated mountain retreat of self-luminous detachment,
resting in the practice of luminosity without clinging,
I sustained the fundamental nature of self-emergent simplicity.
Gazing upon my own true face – carefree openness –
I have the teachings on self-liberation of destructive emotions.
In my isolated mountain retreat of self-emergent non-conceptuality,
remaining in the practice of self-liberation of conditioned appearances,
I sustained the fundamental nature of non-dual hope and fear.
Encountering the wisdom of natural self-liberation,
I hold the instructions for the self-release of whatever arises.
In my isolated mountain retreat devoid of fixation on hope and fear,
resting in the practice of self-liberating destructive emotions
I sustained the fundamental nature of the perfect on-going state of the three kāyas.
Gazing upon my own true nature – effortless dharmakāya –
I possess the instructions on the primordial liberation of cyclic existence and quiescence.
I have attained the fourfold assurance of freedom from abandonment and attainment,
and am liberated inseparably with ever-excellent great bliss.
This is the proper way a practitioner pursues isolated mountain retreat!

Sera Khandro

Our intimate dependence on the natural environment ~ 17th Karmapa

Recognizing our intimate dependence on the natural environment allows us to see its true value and treasure it. One reason that people living in cities nowadays need to be told so much about the importance of caring for the earth is because they did not grow up feeling direct, unmediated connections to it. For them, nature is something that one visits in city parks or on excursions out into the countryside. When we are raised in urban environments, our sense for the natural environment is more remote because we rarely witness our fundamental reliance upon it. Nature seems like a pretty backdrop to our lives, something that adds to the scenery but is basically optional. We are obstructed from seeing how the natural environment is the very stage on which our lives play out. Without the conditions that arise from our environment, nothing whatsoever can take place.

17th Karmapa

Buddha never created any kind of religion ~ Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche

In general, people say, ‘We are following Dharma”, and speak of it as a kind of religion created by Buddha Shakyamuni. That is not a correct point of view. Buddha never created any kind of school or religion. Buddha was a totally enlightened being, someone beyond our limited point of view. The teaching of the Buddha is to have presence in that knowledge.”

Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche

Bowing ~ Shunryu Suzuki

Bowing is a very important practice for diminishing our arrogance and egotism. It is not to demonstrate complete surrender to Buddha. This practice is to help get rid of our own selfishness

Shunryu Suzuki

Not rooted in anything ~ Thrangu Rinpoche

What is clinging to a self rooted in? Actually, it is not rooted in anything. If we see that, then naturally ego-clinging will not happen. The reason it has no root is that when we look for the object that we are clinging to as “me,” as a self, we cannot find it.

Thrangu Rinpoche

Assuring a good future ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

The future is made up of only one substance and that is the present moment. By taking care of the present, you are doing everything you can to assure a good future.

Thich Nhat Hanh

He is called bhikkhu ~ Buddha Shakyamuni

He who does not take the mind-and-body aggregate (nama-rupa) as “I and mine”, and who does not grieve over the dissolution (of mind and body) is, indeed, called a bhikkhu.

Buddha Shakyamuni

Just another concept ~ Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche

But it can happen that a phrase intended to indicate a state beyond concepts just becomes another concept in itself, in the same way that if you ask a person their name and they reply that they have no name, you will then perhaps mistakenly call them ‘No name’.

Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche

A practicing Buddhist ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

As long as you accept and practice these four truths (all compounded things are impermanent, all emotions are pain, all things have no inherent existence, nirvana is beyond concepts) you are a “practicing Buddhist.” You might read about these four truths for the sake of entertainment or mental exercise, but if you don’t practice them, you are like a sick person reading the label on a medicine bottle but never taking the medicine. On the other hand, if you are practicing, there is no need to exhibit that you are Buddhist. As a matter of fact, if it helps you to get invited to some social functions, it is totally fine to hide that you are a Buddhist. But keep in mind that as a Buddhist, you have a mission to refrain as much as possible from harming others, and to help others as much as possible. This is not a huge responsibility, because if you genuinely accept and contemplate the truths, all these deeds flow naturally.

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

Just a single speck of dust ~ Saigyo

On the clear mirror,
just a single speck of dust.
And yet, looking
closely, we see it before
all else — people thinking thus.

Saigyo

Touching the core of our equality ~ 17th Karmapa

Empathy enables us to reach across differences and connect as equals. It does so by cutting straight through the walls that we build up around us and allowing us to touch the core of our equality: the ability to experience pain and joy